Only the Unruly Need Be Warned

I write a lot of things on good works and the warnings that we must continue in the faith if we expect to receive the reward on the last day. We learned during the years at Rose Creek Village, however, that the ones who don’t need the exhortation are the first to receive it, while those who need it tend to think they’re doing fine.

1 Thessalonians 5:14: We exhort you, brothers: Admonish the disorderly; encourage the faint-hearted; support the weak; be patient toward all.

This is to say that many of my friends don’t need to be warned about the upcoming judgment. You already live in fear of God. The fear of God is to hate evil, and you are already warring against the evil in your life, giving yourself to the service of God and others. You just need a pat on your back and to be told, “Those who serve everyone in humility the way you do will be the greatest in God’s kingdom” (Matt. 20:26-28).

*Everyone should know this song (many already do), to remind ourselves of that great truth.

The Faith Once for All Delivered to the Saints

I hope, though, that everyone wants to know what the Bible says, and there is a paradigm (a model or worldview, maybe) of Christianity that prevails in the United States and which contradicts the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

The faith was once delivered by the apostles. It was delivered to the next generation of saints. We have lots of writings from them, and they tell us what was delivered to them. It was not Calvinism, not going to heaven by faith alone, not a taboo against the word “works,” but it was a warring together against evil deeds in our midst and a profound horror at division.

From AD 185:

The Church, though dispersed through our the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one” [Eph. 1:10] and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess to Him [Php. 2:10-11], and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send spiritual wickednesses, and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Bk. I, ch. 10, par. 1-2)